If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. ** If you are logged in, most ads will not be displayed. **

Something about this whole Intel discussion makes me uneasy ... It's that word Moe used: 'efficiency'. I hear it every other day in my own job, and it seems to have a lot of different meanings for different people.

In the UK public sector, efficiency is a hot topic. A VERY hot topic. The idea is to get the same or greater outputs for fewer inputs, and efficiencies are described in both cash and non-cashable terms. So if my staff work smarter, or my manufacturing processes are 'lean' I can get more for less (cash). Non-cashable? I don't fully understand that part.

For large corporations though, 'efficiency' just seems to be about cutting jobs. That's not my understanding of how you improve your core business. If you were stupid enough to over-recruit in the first place, then you probably don't have the vision to make things work in the long term anyway.

Just my cynical 2 pence worth. I think Intel will probably be around in one form or another for a long time, and I'm probably wrong.

I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it. - Pablo Picasso

the c2d series, while it may out perform the a64s by a little, is EXPENSIVE to produce, chips rated at over 2.2ghz yeilds are @ ~5%, not a good sign.

but that's the thing, they're NOT expensive to produce. they are now built in two parts and put together at the end, reducing wastage and making them cheaper overall. that's part of the reason they're able to undercut AMD with the C2D.

Here's why Linux is easier than Windows:
Package Managers! Apt-Get and Portage (among others) allow users to install programs MUCH easier than Windows can.
Hardware Drivers. In SuSE, ALL the hardware is detected and installed automatically! How is this harder than Windows' constant disc changing and rebooting?

50% of dell is going over to amd (They ordered 2 million), compaq/hp already are using 35-45% amd. Honestly, they are in trouble, the c2d series, while it may out perform the a64s by a little, is EXPENSIVE to produce, chips rated at over 2.2ghz yeilds are @ ~5%, not a good sign.

Oh damn. The sky is falling. Everyone bail out of Intel. I'm not worried. Do you have any literature to back those numbers up?

Don't forget IBM!
PPC chips are still used a lot, and that's a lot more than Sun chips. Think about it, every Mac for the last 10 years or so up until the intel switch - Every XBox 360 - the upcoming Cell processor for PS3 is a PPC chip with extra 'servant' cores.

Don't forget IBM!
PPC chips are still used a lot, and that's a lot more than Sun chips. Think about it, every Mac for the last 10 years or so up until the intel switch - Every XBox 360 - the upcoming Cell processor for PS3 is a PPC chip with extra 'servant' cores.

I was surprised to read that this new super computer which IBM are going to build partly uses Cell processors.

I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it. - Pablo Picasso

Sorry, BigTomRodney but I am curious about IBM. Are their chips special? Is that why their computers cost so much?

In the case of the PowerPC (known simply as POWER in the server world), there is something different about these chips as opposed to their Intel brethren. The first and most significant difference is that the POWER processors are Reduced Instruction Set Computer (RISC) chips. For a more detailed explanation, take a look here:

POWER and SPARC processors are RISC chips. The basic idea is they have less built-in logic on the chip, and instead of hardwiring a complex operation that might rarely be used by programs running on the CPU, they decided to implement that large operation by using several smaller, discrete operations. This offers a boost in code execution speed over Complex Instruction Set Computers (CISC).

Another difference between PowerPC and Intel-based chips is the order by which they deal with binary numbers. This is generally referred to as "Big Endian, Little Endian". The basic idea is that processors don't have to read binary from one direction or the other (right to left or left to right). Big Endian chips read the most significant digits first (left to right) whereas Little Endian chips read the least significant digits first (right to left). Intel chips are "little endian" while IBM's POWER processors are "big endian". As far as I know, there is no difference in actual performance due to a chip's "endianness".